Lee Hyung-il vows to focus resources on housing stability, expand supply sites for youth and newlyweds

Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Lee Hyung-il said Friday that the government would "concentrate all available resources on securing housing stability for the public."

Lee made the remarks during a morning visit to the Narakim Yeongdeungpo Complex in Yeongdeungpo-gu, Seoul, where he toured a Haengbok Housing unit and met with public rental housing operators — including the Korea Asset Management Corporation, the Korea Land and Housing Corporation and the Korea Housing Management Corporation — to review challenges in improving residential support services.

The visit was the second field trip for social policy under the government's anti-polarization initiative, following last week's K-New Deal Academy visit. The government has made reducing polarization its top national priority, focusing on three core social policy areas — housing, employment and financial support for low-income households — and the visit was aimed at assessing living conditions for youth and the elderly and identifying concrete steps toward housing stability that citizens can feel directly.

The Narakim Yeongdeungpo Complex was developed by the Korea Asset Management Corporation through a consignment redevelopment of an aging public office building, combining a government office, Haengbok Housing units and neighborhood commercial facilities on a single site. It is widely cited as a model case for raising the utilization of state-owned assets while supplying rental housing for college students, young adults and senior citizens in the heart of the city.

Touring the residential units firsthand, Lee stressed that "it is important to raise residential quality so that residents can live comfortably and safely." He urged the relevant agencies to work on improving the living environment at every stage — from supplying quality housing to maintenance and management after move-in.

At a subsequent roundtable with the agencies, participants reviewed the current status of public rental housing supply and operations, and Lee listened to difficulties and suggestions from those working on the ground.

"A home is both the starting point and the foundation of life," Lee said. "Our policy goal is to guarantee the right to housing so that every citizen — from a young person's first step toward independence to an elderly person's retirement — can live stably without worrying about housing at any stage of life."

He added that the government would "reflect the improvement tasks identified in the field in our policies, so that citizens can feel the results of housing stability efforts."

The government also plans to expand housing supply using state-owned assets. The aim is to allow young people and the elderly to remain in the city at reasonable prices by making use of underutilized or idle state-owned properties in urban areas, as with the Yeongdeungpo complex.

To that end, the government said it would accelerate implementation of a plan to supply 28,000 housing units in the greater Seoul area using aging public office buildings and idle state-owned land. Beyond the sites already announced, authorities plan to continuously identify additional candidate sites for housing supply targeting youth and newlyweds.